adjective. Lacking one or more syllables, especially in the final foot. Used of verse.

In prosody: Wanting part of the last foot: as, a catalectic line or verse: opposed to acatalectic.

noun. A catalectic verse.

adjective. Wanting a syllable at the end, or terminating in an imperfect foot.

adjective. Incomplete; partial; not affecting the whole of a substance.

adjective. Said of a line with incomplete meter, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot.

adjective. incomplete; partial; not affecting the whole of a substance

adjective. (verse) metrically incomplete; especially lacking one or more syllables in the final metrical foot

noun. (prosody) a line of verse that lacks a syllable in the last metrical foot

"But to go on from this, as Dr Guest and some of his followers have done, to the subjection of the whole invaluable vocabulary of classical prosody to a sort of _præmunire_, to hold up the hands in horror at the very name of a tribrach, and exhibit symptoms of catalepsy at the word catalectic -- to ransack the dictionary for unnatural words or uses of words like "catch," and "stop," and"

line of poetry  line of verse  

8-syllable  alliterative  anapaestic  anapestic  elegiac  

incomplete  partial